Willamette Without Frank
by coolkoala16
Summary: What if Frank had never showed up at Willamette mall? What would the other survivors have done without him? This story should answer that question.
1. Prologue

Frank West, photojournalist was kneeling on the floor of a helicopter being piloted by Ed DeLuca. They flew over lots of Colorado's unclaimed land. It seemed like it was years before Frank could even see the Willamette skyline (which wasn't very distinctive since most buildings there weren't very tall). As they wound their way through the air Frank noticed the national guard barricading a road out of town. Something big was definitely going on here. His thoughts of how much he could cash in from this scoop was interrupted by gunfire

Bullets soared from the ground up to the air, ting-ting-tingeing off the helicopter. Ed began to lose control. "Fred, they must have bent up the propellers!!"

"It's Frank! Now just keep this thing in the air until we can land somewhere!!" Frank was panicking now. He just wanted a story, he didn't want to die.

They managed to keep the helicopter up until they reached the heart of town. "Maybe you can land on the mall and we'll do what we can from there." Suggested Frank.

"OK buddy, sounds goo-" Ed was cut off by the sounds of more propellers. Two national guard helicopters were now tailing them. They swerved around trying to dodge the other helicopters. Things were looking good for a minute until one of the helicopters dove right in front of them.

The collision was explosive. It looked like a fireworks display at Disney Land. That was the end of our photojournalist.


	2. The Entrance Plaza

Brad dashed frantically across the second floor of the entrance plaza. "What in the hell are you people doing?! Move, get over here!!" He bellowed down to the survivors.

They stood idle. Were they deaf? It didn't look like anybody down there could fight to save their lives so Brad took out his gun and cocked it. He dashed down the stairs and put a bullet in a few zombies before reaching a sorrowful Verlene.

"DANA!!" Verlene called for her friend hidden by a crowd of zombies. Brad approached her quickly.

"Miss, please come with me we have to move!" Brad said to Verlene Willis who didn't seem to be paying him much mind.

"I'm not taking a step without Dana!!" She replied sharply to Brad. "DANA!!"

Brad let out a hesitant grunt and dove into the crowd of zombies. He was seized from behind from a bulky, male zombie. He fought to position his gun right and shot the zombie in the forehead. It relinquished it's grip on him and fell back, dead.

As Brad pressed on he finally saw her, Dana Simms. Her smooth brown hair covered her pale face as she bawled, choking out, "Verlene..." every few sniffles.

Brad grabbed her roughly by the arm and began leading her back over to Verlene. however, this proved to be a difficult task, as more zombies had now filled the entrance plaza. He pulled Dana through the crowd by the arm as she wailed. He suddenly tripped over what he could have sworn was a human hand.

The last thing he heard was a shriek from Dana and he saw the green sleeve of Dana's jacket quickly grab his gun. Then... Everything went dark.


	3. Jessie's Lament

Jessie sat at the Security Room monitors watching the Entrance Plaza intently. She was filled with worry for Brad. She knew he had gone in there to help those people. She lost sight of him a few minutes ago in the middle of a crowd with a brown-haired girl.

As she began to drown in her lament the door suddenly burst open. A blonde haired girl in a white jacket supported Brad as they entered the Security Room and the same brown-haired girl she saw Brad disappeared with fired a last bullet around the corner before dashing in and slamming the door behind her.

"Oh, my god, Brad!!" Jessie rushed over and wrenched him out of the blonde girl's supporting arm and laid him down on the sofa in the corner. His eyes opened groggily he saw Jessie and tried to sit up but groaned with pain upon trying to do so and gave at a loud, "Dammit!"

"Don't strain yourself, Brad; You're hurt really bad." Jessie carelessly rummaged through all of security room lockers until she found some gauze. She wrapped up Brad's wounds.

"Wait, Jessie... Was that last one a bite? You know what HQ told us about bites..." Brad reminded her ominously.

"Brad , it was just a scratch like all the others." Jessie told him. She had not actually looked at it but she knew what Brad would ask her to do if it was actually a bite... She thought to herself trying not to glance at the gun Dana was holding, still standing behind her.

"Jessie, check again." Brad said firmly. He would not let himself be the reason she didn't make it out of here.

"Yes, sir." Replied Jessie obediently. She had forgotten that Brad was her higher-up, not her buddy. She removed the gauze and... "Oh thank god, it's just a scratch. If you don't believe me look and see for yourself."

Brad looked down at the supposed, 'scratch', and saw that Jessie was telling the truth. He breathed a sigh of relief and laid his head back against the sofa. He fell asleep within a minute.


	4. Kent's Photoshoot

She looked up and saw something on the monitor that pulled her from her seat causing the rolling chair to speed back and hit the filing cabinets behind her (which woke Brad with a grunt). She found herself looking at the culprit behind this, Carlito Keyes. He stood on top of the food court booths. He had an awe fully big gun, he was having target practice with zombies.

She strode quickly to the door ready to break out in a run as soon as she got through the air duct (Otis had welded off the door to the entrance plaza).

"Jessie, I'm coming too, I saw him in the monitor." Brad said who had been watching from the moment he was awakened by the chair's clank against the filing cabinets. He got out of bed with enormous effort and let out a loud and pitiful grunt of pain.

"No you're not Brad, you're not leaving this spot." Jessie told him as she scooped up his gun and walked out and locked the door behind her. She had two guns on her. She handed Brad's handgun to Otis and said, "Make sure Brad doesn't follow me."

Jessie broke into a sprint across the roof, her blonde hair swimming in the wind behind her. She clambered into the elevator leading down into the warehouse and jabbed the button. Once down there she sprinted out of the warehouse.

As soon as she pushed the door open she was mortified to see that Paradise Plaza was already full of zombies. She cleared a path with her gun but as she ran she noticed a young, red haired man, with a camera up in the cafeteria. She rushed up the stairs to him.

"Sir, are you injured?" She asked him immediately. She wasn't going to lead an infected person back to the room with living, not-yet-damned people.

"Not at all." He said flirtatiously admiring the cleavage her DHS uniform revealed.

Jessie fought back a disgusted grunt and said, "Sir, you need to come with me this is a dangerous place." She had an uneasy feeling about this man.

"I'm busy right now, honey." He said taking a picture that was clearly focused on her breasts. "Y'know you could model for me, I'd get some good shots." He said moving his eyebrows up and down.

"Sir, there are bigger things than photography going on in this mall, I am taking you to safety. Consider yourself in DHS custody." She said holding her badge an inch in front of his nose.

The man whipped out a pistol exactley like hers. He directed it at her. "Take the clothes of, Babe. We're gonna have a little photo shoot."

Jessie was stunned. She removed her coat and turned around modeling her rear end. Then suddenly she swung her left leg around and gave him a hard kick across the face, stunning him. She quickly removed her own gun and put a bullet through his head. She wasn't proud of killing him, but she had to defend herself against this nut job.

Jessie dashed down the stairs, once again clearing herself a path across the plaza with bullets, and exited to the leisure park.


	5. Carlito

Jessie was happy to see that the leisure park was spacious and she could easily avoid crowds of zombies She weaved her way across the park until she came to the doors of the food court, in which she had spotted Carlito on the monitor

It was to her dismay that she saw an enormous cluster of zombies huddled in front of the glass doors. She didn't have enough bullets to take them all out and hand-to-hand combat was definitely not her specialty.

She began to consider her options but the only thing she could think to do was break out one of the Wonderland Plaza's windows and try to reach the food court through there. She however soon realized this would not be necessary. This realization came upon her when she noticed the red lawn-mower sitting nearby.

She turned it on and plowed through the crowd of zombies with it. Limbs and heads flew all around as she progressed through the cluster. All she could see was red because the lenses of her glasses were covered with thick blood.

As soon as she was sure that all of the zombies by the door had been dispatched (as there was no more moaning) she withdrew a handkerchief from her coat pocket and cleaned her glasses.

Once she could see properly she pushed open the food court doors and was greeted with a slew of bullets. Luckily they were all cheap shots and she was not injured She quickly dashed into a restaurant with a lot of wine bottles strewn around. She crouched behind the counter and prepared to shoot the terrorist.

Bullets continued to fly in the direction of the counter. She waited until fire ceased and she was sure he had to reload. She took the opportunity to spring up from behind the counter and put a bullet into Carlito's shoulder.

His gun flew from his hand and landed down by a food stand. He clutched his wound and dashed for the escape rope he had prepared. He then disappeared up to the ceiling.


	6. Barnaby

Jessie scooped up the gun that Carlito had dropped seconds ago. Since there were no zombies around, she had a moment to take a break. She collapsed down into booth in a nearby restaurant. She examined the gun and noticed that Carlito had just reloaded before he dropped it, she could get some use out of this weapon.

Her tranciever began to ring and she noticed that the ringer was quite annoying, She picked it up and inquired, "Brad, is that you?"

"No, it's me, Otis the janitor." Said a raspy African American voice. Jessie groaned and asked, "Otis, what is it? I'm busy." "Well, sorry to bother you but you oughtta know there's some old dude in the entrance plaza hidin' out in a book store with the gate down. You might wanna check it out!"

Jessie hung up on Otis and practically sprung up out of the booth. She knew it had to be Barnaby, it just had to be! She used her new toy to clear a path to the glass doors of the Alfresca Plaza. She noticed a barricade and could hear muffled voices behind it, but there was no time. Barnaby was her only concern.

When she reached the Entrance Plaza she pressed the switch to open the shutter, and made a beeline to the nearest book store which was indeed gated off. She shook the gate and said, "Dr. Barnaby! Are you in there?!"

She heard a grunt and an old crotchety man hobbled toward her on the other side of the gate. "Who are you?" He inquired. "Sir, I have to ask you to open this gate so I can take you somewhere safe!" Jessie responded. "Oh, I see... With the government are you?" He summed up. "I don't need somewhere safe, I need a secure route out of here! Come back when you've got one!" He then dissappeared into the back of the store. She gave a frustrated sigh and retreated away from the store.

She knew she had to go back and tell Brad what had happened so she turned to move back to the doors to the Alfresca Plaza, but it was now crawling with zombies. She knew she could handle it easily with Carlito's gun so she fired rapidly as she ran towards the door. She moved back across the Alfresca and was going to return to the barricade but noticed a woman crying. She vaulted the counter and placed a gentle hand on the woman's shoulder. She was about to say something comforting but she quickly found herself being strangled by the woman. She knew the woman must be deranged because she kept screaming, "GRAAAAACE!!" Jessie panicked and didn't know what to do so she pressed the machine gun to the woman's stomach and pulled the trigger. Jessie looked down at the lunatic's bloody image on the floor and put a hand over her mouth. She vaulted the counter once more, shaking with pale skin. She completely ignored the barricade on her way back to the food court and just kept walking.


	7. The Convicts

Jessie was sick to her stomach. She couldn't believe that she had just killed a live, woman. Sure she was crazy... Did that justify it though? She was off in her own world of thoughts until she was yanked out of it by the sound of a jeep's horn honk shrilly in the night.

Jessie instinctively raised her gun and stared ahead of her at the most terrifying weapon she had seen in her life. It was an enmormous machine gun (much bigger than hers) mounted on a green army jeep.

"I am Jessica McCarney with D-DHS a-and I-I a-am t-taking y-you into c-custody for un-unauthorized use of a m-military v-vehicle!" She stuttered. She usually wouldn't give out her position, but these were the kind of people she was used to arresting in the few cases she had been involved in.

"Hey dude, check out this blonde bitch! Who she thinks she be?" Said the man driving the car to the man mounted on the gun.

"I don't know dude, but hows about we get some tonight, oh yeah!" Replied the man on the gun. The next thing Jessie knew, the jeep had sped right by and she had been pulled into the vehicle by the passenger. She realized that she had dropped her machine gun too late... The men began to unbutton her blouse. She wriggled, writhed and protested but the men continued to undress her. Juse as she had lost all hope... BANG!BANG!BANG!

Suddenly, everything was still. The men had stopped, she observed that they were... dead! She looked around and noticed a bald man with glasses with a red haired girl cowering behind him. He was holding her machine gun so she deduced that he had killed the convicts. She staggered out of the car and over to the couple.

"Thank you..." Was all she could manage to say to the man who introduced himself as "Sid" and the red haired girl as "Sophie." Jessie explained that the security room was safe and led the quirky couple directly to it.


End file.
